Health Projects and Meltdowns
by cootiecatchersanddreams
Summary: When Sarah is partnered with Jacob for a health project, and secrets are revealed.


Sarah is failing her health class, and when she partners up with a smart boy to raise her grade, shit goes down.

Originally, being partnered with Jacob had been a nightmare to Sarah. He was tall and surprisingly built for a nerd. She was lanky and spastic. Spending so much time with a boy who was quiet was not a fun idea to her. However, now that she was on her way over to his house to start working on the poster part of their project, she began to excited. She had always found his lop-sided smile kind of cute.

When she knocked on the door, she already smelled the scent of fresh chocolate cookies, which was no surprise. Jacob's mom was head of every fundraiser, especially bake sales. When she answered the door she had on a floral apron on, and was followed by Jacob's little sister, who was blonde, compared to Jacob's mouse-y brown. She had a teddy bear in own hand and her trac-fone in the other. Sarah greeted the family warmly and was told to head up stairs to Jacob's room, and soon they could have cookies.

On the way up the stairs, Sarah giggled to herself at the thought of being in a boy's bedroom, a place where she had never been before. She knocked on Jacob's door just to be safe, she wasn't really sure of what happened in a boy's bedroom, and had no intention of stumbling in on it unannounced. Jacob pulled up his door and flashed Sarah one of those cute grins he had mastered. Sarah found herself swooning a little before remembering who he was.  
"S-s-so what are we doing?" Sarah was surprised to find herself tripping over her words. She wasn't nervous

After chuckling a little, Jacob said "Poster, you draw and I'll write."

She sat down and began sketching the oral anatomy, which she was failing at. Jacob was just staring at her, and started thinking to himself what a killer body she had.

"S-sorry it's so bad, it's hard to picture teeth." Sarah said, interrupting Jacobs thought, and he just smiled kindly, a smile she returned, with an even bigger one. Sarah began to think it was a lot better that she had paired with him instead of Trent, as she had originally willed her teacher to pair her with. She felt lucky now, as Trent might have told her off for being such a horrible artist.

Jacob just kept picturing that smile, and how it might have been even more killer than her body, which because of a BMI unit in health the previous week, he knew she was 5'10" a size 1 and weighed 105lbs. He took note of her tall, lean figure as she bent over to draw a molar. He glanced her up and down, stopping for a second at her breasts which looked sort of big for her slim figure.

Sarah let out a small sigh in frustration, "this is so hard" she whined, "I wish this was on the ribcage, I can draw that…"  
At a peak of curiosity Jacob asked "Why a rib cage?"  
"Well, I see them a lot…"  
"Where?"

"The mirror" Sarah flashed a weak smile as her sentence trailed off.

Jacob was intrigued. He knew she was thin, but she wasn't _sick _was she? "Show me."  
She stood up, drawing herself to her full height, which was only a few inches shorter than Jacob, which had him taken aback a bit, as he wasn't used to girls being as lanky as she was.

"Are you sure? It's pretty nasty." She said nervously, glancing around her body, fixing a look of disgust upon her face as if she found nothing about herself pleasing.

"Nothing about you is nasty." Jacob said, before he could stop himself. She looked up shocked, but seemingly pleased, and flashed him a slight smile.

"Well, here goes nothing." She said as she griped the bottom of her t-shirt tightly, and lifted it until her stomach was exposed, making sure she didn't show her boobs, she was already uncomfortable about their size. And she wasn't some kind of floozy.

Jacob took in her flat stomach, which was pale, but not unsightly to the least. Without thinking he jokingly reached out and poked her stomach to which she responded with a squeal. "Don't poke my fat!" she yelped before grimacing down at the small pooch that barely went over the top of her jeans.

"You are in no way fat. You're cute." Jacob replied wondering how in anyway she was fat. "I don't see your ribcage…"  
"Oh, yeah…" And with a final breath, she sucked in.

Jacob was dumbfounded. He knew his eyes were bulging and that his jaw was open. He couldn't help it, her stomach shrunk as if someone had stuck a vacuum hose in her back and sucked out all her organs. The place where her intestines used to sit was now only about 2 inches wide, and you could see every nook and cranny of her ribcage. "Boy, you weren't kidding." He said before he gathered the nerve to ask the question "Sarah, do you… do you have an eating disorder?"  
She paused for a second while she considered lying and telling him she **did** just so her body wouldn't seem so unnatural. She couldn't bring herself to so she just replied "No, I wish though…"

Jacob couldn't rap his head around this, why would someone with such a beautiful body want an eating disorder? He just cocked his head as a tear rolled down her cheek. He held out his arms, wondering if Sarah would accept his hug.

Sarah saw this and quickly dove into his arms. She hated her body. Her long neck, her big eyes, her hair, her skinny stomach, her size C chest, her height, her big-ass feet, all of it, she hated ALL OF IT. She couldn't pin point the day she started hating herself. It was there, wrapped in Jacob's arms, a boy who she had formally ignored, she cried. He held her tight, wouldn't let go through every snotty, shuttering sigh.

When she finally calmed down, without letting go, he held her and asked with hesitation aplenty "Why do you hate yourself?" An innocent question, with oh, so, much baggage. He wasn't sure if he could ask that question, I mean they had never really even spoken in class before and here she was delicately wrapped in his arms. He felt as if he squeezed too tightly, she might shatter.  
With one last shuttering breath, she lifted her head to look Jacob in his beautiful blue eyes. She had never noticed what great eyes he had. "Well, I have never felt pretty, I have a gorgeous older sister who everyone, including myself, compares me too. I have always been lanky. I wish I w as more proportional. My eyes are too large, everyone called me an owl in middle school. I'm too skinny; everyone thinks I _do _have an eating disorder, thanks for joining that club by the way. My neck is do long and my chest is too large, and my feet are huge. I'm odd. I hate it. Why I said I wished I had an eating disorder so that the little trick I just did wouldn't make me seem so unnatural. I probably eat more than you. I'm a pig." She drew in a sharp sigh; she couldn't believe she was revealing all of this to him. He didn't care.

He sat down on his bed with a heavy sigh, pulling her down with him; he didn't want their bodies to lose contact. "Wow, that's a lot. I didn't know beautiful girls had so much they hated about themselves…" Sarah simply snorted. Her? Beautiful? Ha. Yeah right. "No, I'm serious. I think you're gorgeous. I find your body entrancing. Except that suck in thing, that's kind of scary. I still think you have an amazing body. I hadn't noticed your feet; they just have to keep you in balance because you're so tall. I think tall is amazing, I really don't understand why you don't have a boyfriend and some girls who are around 5 feet tall do. I have no idea why a guy would want to date someone who looks like their baby sister. You, you look like a woman. You're eyes are not too big, they sparkle. Like the moon. Who wants a star when you can have a moon right? And matched with that smile of yours, it's a shame I don't see it more. And, well I don't normally say things like this, and probably never will again, but you have an _amazing _rack."  
Sarah chuckled softly at the last part and laid her head on his shoulder. "I wish other guys saw me the way you do."

"I'm sure they do, they just don't have enough courage to tell you, so they mock you."  
"If I'm as great as you say I am…"  
She was cut of by Jacob's quick "you are."  
"IF I am, why am I single?"

"Because boys are dumb."  
She looked at him, gazing into his eyes again, and before she knew it, he was lifting her chin from his shoulder and pulling her mouth towards his. He had never done this before, and he felt he was being a fool, but his sister had made him watch the notebook a billion times with her, so he had some idea. Sarah had never even held hands, and here she was about to touch her lips to a boy's. Even better, a boy who thought she was beautiful.

When their lips finally met, it wasn't awkward; it was full of love and pity. To Jacob, Sarah's lips tasted sweet, like he knew she had to be down under all of those insecurities. As well as being slightly salty, from the tears. It was the best of both worlds for him. He could feel her pain leaving her body, as if his kiss was warming her from the inside out. Jacob's lips tasted like the cookies Sarah had smelt downstairs, sweet, warm and melt-y.

After a minute or so, Jacob's mom called from down stairs that it was a snack break, she was sure they had been working hard. Jacob was yanked back to reality, and pulled away, to which Sarah replied with a small whine. She knew that snacks, even cookies, could not be as good as their lip lock had been, and they had totally forgotten about their poster. They trudged down the stairs, not even touching, Sarah was to preoccupied wondering about the damage to her face from crying (i.e. tear stains, running make-up, etc.) And Jacob wouldn't dare because even though he was a Christian, his family would never allow him to have a girl in his room besides for homework purposes. They ate their cookies in silence.

After Returning to the bedroom, Sarah sat and stared at her awful drawing of the mouth, before simply stating "I don't know the mouth that well, I think I need a bit more practice with it." And with that, she sat on the bed expectantly. Jacob sat beside her, pulling her thin frame into his lap. He stared into her moon-like eyes, and looked at the grin on her face, to which he responded to pulling her closer, and kissing her again. 


End file.
